Thin Air: (Shetland book 6)

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Eleanor Longstaff. She was up for Lowrie Malcolmson’s hamefarin’.’

  ‘I was there. It was a fine do. You think someone killed her?’

  Sandy shrugged. ‘Did you see her at the party? One of the bridesmaids. Dark hair. English.’

  ‘You wouldn’t miss her.’

  ‘Anyone showing any special interest?’

  This time the ferryman shrugged. ‘She wanted people to look at her. You know the sort. Never happy without an audience. Most of the men in the room obliged.’

  ‘Nobody gave her any hassle?’ Sandy drained his glass and raised it to Billy to show that he wanted another. The barman seemed disappointed.

  ‘Nah. It wasn’t that sort of party. You’ve been to the hamefarin’s. It was for families. Elderly relatives and bairns.’

  ‘Did you know all the people there?’ Sandy asked.

  ‘Apart from the English folk.’

  ‘I’m interested in a peerie lassie. Aged around ten. She was out on the beach, and her parents could have been in the hall. Do you mind who that might have been?’

  The man considered and seemed to be running through possibilities in his head. ‘Sorry, I can’t think of anyone like that at all. But I didn’t know everyone. Besides the couple’s English friends, there were other relatives from the south.’

  ‘Any lasses of that age live in Meoness?’

  This time he answered more quickly. ‘Nah. Some of us have bairns, but they’re all boys.’

  The drinkers drifted away then and Sandy was left to finish his beer alone. When he returned to his room the light in the office had been switched off.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Perez left Unst the next morning on the first ferry to Yell. Sandy got up to see him off and watched him go, as if it was a sort of desertion. There were a couple of families on the boat, holidaymakers heading south after a spring break. Perez wondered if he’d see them again at Sumburgh. The rest were local, in cars with the blue-and-white Shetland flag on their bumpers, making the long commute to Lerwick for work or shopping.

  Cassie was waiting for him at Duncan’s house, her small overnight bag already packed. He could tell she was excited, but that she was fidgeting about missing school. Cassie had always been one for following rules, and since Fran’s death it had become a kind of compulsion. A neurosis. Perez could understand that. It was about security. Playing it safe.

  ‘I’ve told her,’ Duncan said, ‘a few days away from lessons will do her no harm. I was always bunking off, wasn’t I, Jimmy?’

  ‘I’ve talked to Miss Price.’ Perez directed his words to Cassie, not to her father. ‘She’s given me some work for you to do when you’re staying with Grandma. And she wants a story all about the trip to London, when you get back to school.’

  On the way south to Sumburgh they talked about London. ‘Grandma wants to show you the sights,’ Perez said. ‘She’s talking about a boat trip on the Thames and all sorts of treats. They can’t wait to see you.’

  ‘Will you be there?’

  ‘I have work to do in the city,’ Perez said. He paused. ‘Anyway I think Grandma and Grandpa would rather have you to themselves for a while. Then they can spoil you without me seeing and stopping them.’

  ‘Is it dangerous work?’

  ‘No! It’s talking to people, to women mostly. Routine. Background stuff.’

  ‘But you’re a boss,’ she said. ‘Sandy should be doing routine work.’

  ‘I wanted an excuse to take you to London.’ And that, at last, seemed to satisfy her.

  It was a clear day and, on the flight south to Aberdeen, Fair Isle appeared suddenly beneath them, with the iconic shape of Sheep Rock to the east. Perez wasn’t sure whether he should point it out. That’s where I was born. And where your mother died. But Cassie saw the island below and mentioned it herself. ‘You said you would take me soon,’ she said. ‘When can we go?’

  ‘This summer. When school’s finished. We’ll stay for a few days.’ He realized that the idea made him uncomfortable. Was it impertinent to think of Cassie as belonging to his family now? What would Fran’s parents in London make of that?

  Cassie seemed to pick up his ambivalence. ‘What should I call your mother and father when I see them? They’re not quite grandparents, are they? Or are they? I never know, so I end up not calling them anything.’

  ‘They think of themselves as your grandparents,’ he said. But call them whatever you like. James and Mary? You could ask them.’

  She peered out of the window until the island disappeared from view. There was a quick connection at Aberdeen and then they were arriving into Heathrow, into the crowds and the noise. Everything giant-sized and everyone yelling. Cassie went very quiet and held onto his hand. She looked smaller here where the buildings and the buses towered above her. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and take her back to Shetland, where he could keep her safe. Then he thought that a woman had just been killed in Shetland and that people were much the same wherever they were.

  Fran’s parents were waiting for them, had probably been looking out for the taxi for hours. Cassie was their only grandchild, but it was more than that. She was all they had left of their daughter. Perez could understand why she was so important. They glimpsed traces of the girl they’d known and the woman they’d lost in Cassie’s eyes, in the way she ran, and in her stubbornness and her fierce independence. They lived in a neat little house in a tree-lined suburb, which had become more fashionable since they’d bought it. There was a new coffee shop on the corner. A woman in an extravagant floral dress walked down the street clutching a small white dog and ignored them.

  Fran’s mother took Cassie to the room that had once been Fran’s. It smelled of paint. Perez wondered if the couple had been up all night decorating it. There was a view over city gardens, and everything was green and lush.

  ‘You’ll stay for an early supper, Jimmy? I thought we’d eat soon because Cassie will be tired.’ She smiled and he thought she was a very good woman. She made such an effort to keep the blame from her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m pushed for time. You know.’

  ‘But you’ll have a cup of tea at least.’

  So he agreed to a cup of tea. He had to respond in some way to her generosity of spirit. Downstairs Fran’s father already had the kettle on. They sat in the tiny garden on uncomfortable wrought-iron seats, balancing the cups on a wobbly wrought-iron table, while Cassie played with the neighbour’s cat and they all tried to pretend there was no tension or awkwardness. He thought even Cassie was relieved when he took his leave. He stood on the doorstep and said he would be there early on Thursday morning to take the girl home. That provoked the only crack in the mask of cordial civilization.

  ‘So soon, Jimmy?’ Fran’s mother cried. ‘Is that all we have? One full day?’

  ‘I have to be back in the islands for work.’ The words mild. ‘And Cassie has school.’ He understood that deep down they wanted to capture Cassie and bring her up themselves. How could they entrust her safety to the man who’d allowed their daughter to be killed? But Fran had bequeathed Cassie to him and they all had to respect her wishes.

  ‘Of course.’ She’d already recovered her composure. ‘You said that it would only be a flying visit.’

  ‘Why don’t you come up and stay with us?’

  ‘We will.’ But they’d only been in Shetland once since Fran had died and he knew they’d found the experience distressing. It reminded them of how far she’d grown away from them, even before her murder.

  He checked into his hotel and phoned the number he’d been given for Cilla Montgomery, Eleanor’s mother. No reply. Then he tried Bright Star, Eleanor’s production company. It was five o’clock and he’d expected that the staff would be preparing to leave work for the evening and thought he’d be forced to make an appointment for the following day. But a young man said everyone would be around for a couple of hours yet, if Perez wanted to call in, and went on to give c
risp directions. Perez found the office in a converted brewery close to King’s Cross station. Bright Star took up half the ground floor. In the rest of the building there was an architect’s practice, a literary agency and a firm of lawyers. Perez was buzzed into an open-plan office where five people sat in front of PCs. Most seemed very young and all were casually dressed. He’d been expecting a place where films might be made – a studio with cameras and spotlights – but this had the air of a well-appointed sixth-form common room. The atmosphere was sombre. Perez supposed that Eleanor’s death would mark the end of Bright Star Productions and these people might now find themselves without work.

  A tall, dark man dressed in jeans, Converse boots and a loose sweater of the kind that Willow Reeves might have worn came up to him with his hand outstretched.

  ‘Inspector Perez. We’ve been expecting you. You found us OK?’ He smiled as if the inspector was a valued client. Perez wondered if Eleanor’s team had been appointed for their charm. He supposed that it would be part of the job to be appealing to broadcasters and commissioners. ‘I’m not quite sure how we can help, though. We’re in a state of shock.’ He shook Perez’s hand. ‘My name’s Leo Whitehouse. I was Nell’s assistant.’

  Perez sat on a desk and felt like a college lecturer trying to be one of the gang. ‘Eleanor was working on a documentary about ghosts,’ he said. ‘Can you give me the background to that?’

  ‘There’d been a survey about contemporary belief systems for one of the national papers and it seemed to indicate a spike in the number of younger, educated individuals who claimed to have had supernatural experiences. Our documentary planned to look in more detail at what might have provoked the increase. It wasn’t about debunking the reports, but about considering what might lead apparently rational people to become convinced that they’d seen a ghost or that a medium had been in contact with a deceased loved one. A need for the spiritual in an irreligious age. That was the angle we were going for.’ The words came easily. He’d obviously described the project before. He paused before continuing. ‘Actually we were all thrilled when we got the commission. Things had been looking a bit tricky recently. Financially, I mean. It looked as if there might have to be some redundancies. The ghost project was just what we needed.’

  Perez made a mental note to ask Willow to get a search on the Bright Star accounts. ‘What was Eleanor’s take on the subject?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ The lanky young man frowned.

  ‘Did she believe in ghosts?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so!’ Leo gave a sudden grin. ‘Nell believed in good red wine and expensive shoes. I don’t think you would have called her a spiritual woman in any sense.’

  ‘Even more recently? I understand that the loss of a child had affected her very deeply.’ Perez looked out at the young, unmarked faces and wondered if any of them had faced tragedy. In the weeks after Fran’s death he’d been convinced that he’d seen her standing at the foot of his bed. If a medium had promised that she could set up a line of contact with the dead, he’d have jumped at the chance.

  ‘That was a few months ago,’ the man said. ‘She’d been more her old self lately. Excited by her friend’s wedding and the trip north. The whole ghost thing.’

  ‘Were you all working on that?’ Perez looked around the room, at the nearly grown children who’d lost their boss and their surrogate mother.

  ‘No,’ Leo said. ‘Just me and Alice at this point.’ A small, dark young woman dressed in black waved from a desk in the back row. ‘The others are winding up a couple of smaller projects. Eleanor did the important stuff, setting up meetings with potential directors, working out budgets. We were making the initial contacts, weeding out the loonies.’

  ‘Were there lots of those?’

  ‘No,’ Leo said. ‘Surprisingly few.’

  ‘Had you talked to anyone in Shetland about sightings of Peerie Lizzie?’

  There was a moment’s silence in the room and in the end Alice spoke. ‘I found out about Peerie Lizzie on the Internet,’ she said, ‘and tracked down one couple who’d claimed to have seen her. The others weren’t very credible. Though Eleanor had already heard about Peerie Lizzie from a friend and she said she’d follow up that story because she was going to Shetland anyway. It was a bit of a bummer actually! I was hoping I’d get a trip to the islands out of it. I’ve never been further north than Derby.’

  ‘Did Eleanor set up a meeting with the couple?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alice said. ‘Nell went a bit weird and mysterious on us actually, about Peerie Lizzie. I mean usually she was very open and sharing about her work, but she started shutting her office door when she was on the phone.’ She pointed to a glass box in the corner of the room. ‘It was odd. She hasn’t minded us listening in before, even to quite high-powered discussions with execs.’

  ‘Are you sure all her secret conversations were work-related?’ Perez was trying to make sense of this. If Peerie Lizzie had the reputation of appearing to the childless and helping them to become pregnant, he could see why Eleanor would want to follow up the story herself. But he couldn’t understand why she would want to keep her interest private. Perhaps she’d be embarrassed to admit that she might be taking the claims seriously, but she had a legitimate work-related excuse for her questions, so why be worried about her team eavesdropping? It occurred to him that there might be another explanation for the closed door.

  Alice seemed to be following his train of thought. ‘You think she might have been having an affair?’ She laughed. ‘Nah, really I don’t think so. We always said that Nell was married to Ian and her work, and we weren’t sure which was most important to her. She wouldn’t make time for another man in her life.’

  ‘Do you have the contact details for the Shetland couple who claimed to have seen the ghost?’

  ‘Sure, I’ve got them on my system. I’ll print them out for you.’ She tapped on the keyboard, the printer whirred and she handed him a sheet of paper with a name and an address.

  ‘Neil and Vaila Arthur, Spindrift, Meoness, Unst.’

  The words obviously meant nothing to the people in the room. But they were of great significance to him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Perez stood on the pavement and felt the heat reflect from it. After his meeting with the team from Bright Star Productions, he couldn’t face seeing Eleanor’s mother that evening. He’d had an early start and the travel and the encounter with Fran’s parents had left him restless and lacking in concentration. He knew that his decision to keep custody of Cassie was purely selfish – she was all he had left of the woman he’d adored – but it had been Fran’s wish and, no matter what her parents thought, there was no way he would change his mind. He found himself walking through the streets until he came to a quiet coffee shop. It was eight at night and he marvelled that the place was still open. A couple of students with laptops sat at the tables. He ordered tea and a toasted sandwich and perched on a high stool at a counter near the window and watched the passers-by. He phoned Eleanor’s mother.

  ‘Yes?’ An imperious voice, but one that sounded old and exhausted.

  He asked if he might visit her the next morning.

  ‘I suppose so, but I’m not sure what good it will do. My daughter wasn’t killed in London, after all.’

  ‘But you might have some questions for me,’ Perez said. ‘We could have a conversation about Eleanor.’

  There was a pause. He imagined her sipping from a glass by her side. Perhaps he even heard the faint sound of her pouring more wine. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘What time would you like me to come?’

  ‘Whenever you like. I won’t be at work. They’ve forced me to take compassionate leave, though I think I’d be better off there.’ She paused. ‘Not too early, though. I’ve never done early mornings.’

  ‘Eleven o’clock?’

  ‘Fine. Whatever.’ The teenage slang sounded strange coming from her. She’d lost interest in th
e conversation now, he thought.

  ‘I’ll see you then.’ But he thought she might have cut off the conversation before he’d even finished speaking.

  Willow Reeves answered her mobile so quickly that he wasn’t ready to speak to her and he wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  ‘Jimmy? Are you there?’ Amused rather than irritated by his failure to speak, when he’d been the one to make the call. ‘Do you have anything useful?’

  ‘It sounds as if Eleanor’s company wasn’t doing as well as her friends led us to believe. Maybe this ghost show was just about keeping it solvent. It might be worth getting the forensic accountants to check out the figures.’

  ‘I can certainly organize that.’ Her voice was suddenly very clear. He could imagine her in the next room.

  ‘Eleanor had made contact with a couple who’d claimed to see Peerie Lizzie,’ he said. ‘They’re called Arthur, and they live in Unst.’ A pause. ‘The address is Meoness.’

  ‘Well, there’s a coincidence.’

  He wasn’t sure how to react to that. ‘The house is called Spindrift.’

  ‘I’ve seen the name somewhere.’ He could sense her excitement down the line. ‘The new bungalow on the way to Sletts. They’ve carved the name on a bit of driftwood and stuck it on the front wall of the garden. I’ll go and talk to them tomorrow and see if Eleanor visited. Maybe she was there on the night she died, sitting up waiting for the spirit to appear.’

  He could tell she was being flippant and didn’t bother answering.

  ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re all missing you. Come back soon.’

  Again he wasn’t sure what to say. He switched off his phone, climbed down from the stool and continued walking until he reached his hotel.

  He woke early and, instead of going straight to see Eleanor’s mother, headed instead to Hampstead and the Folklore Society library, where Polly Gilmour worked. It was an ordinary house in a leafy street, standing out from the others only because it was shabbier. When he pushed open the door, a bell rang and a middle-aged woman with long grey hair fluttered down the stairs to greet him. She wore a long skirt and a silk tunic and many silk scarves.